Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was certainly an eventful one for all the wrong reasons, as the FIA once again grabbed all the headlines after slapping Fernando Alonso with a 10-second time penalty, just to revoke it hours later.
Alonso drove brilliantly once again for Aston Martin at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, with the Spaniard having led the opening laps before being overtaken by Sergio Pérez.
The double world champion did run into early trouble, though, after being awarded with a five-second time penalty for starting outside of his grid slot.
Alonso positioned his car too far to the left of his grid slot, resulting in a penalty.
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He opted to serve this ahead of his one and only pit-stop, with the 41-year-old having luckily not lost any places in the process.
However, Alonso was slapped with a 10-second time penalty moments after the race had finished, due to it being deemed that he hadn’t correctly served his five-second time penalty.
Footage showed that the rear jack was touching Alonso’s car whilst the penalty was being served; however, following an appeal by Aston Martin, the penalty was revoked due to it having been deemed that the jack wasn’t ‘working’ on his car.
This saw Alonso reinstated into third, meaning he was given back his 100th trophy.
The FIA reinstating Alonso back to third, though, remarkably resulted in the 2021 season finale being brought up once again, with a Lewis Hamilton fan having called for the FIA to “overturn” the race result following Michael Masi’s “human error”.
“Hey, @fia, while you’re at it, you may as well overturn Abu Dhabi 2021 race result and reinstate Lewis Hamilton as the rightful race winner and World Champion,” wrote @alinadanieladan on Twitter.
Hamilton was in complete control of the 2021 season finale and was on-track for both the victory in Abu Dhabi and an unprecedented eighth world title, only for a “human error” from Masi to take it away from him.
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As a result of Masi’s error during the late Safety Car at the Yas Marina Circuit, Max Verstappen claimed the win and his first title, leaving Hamilton and Mercedes speechless.
Several F1 fans were quick to comment under the mentioned tweet, stating that the FIA can’t ‘reinstate’ Hamilton given that he didn’t cross the line in first.
“Reinstate”? He was never the race winner, so you can’t reinstate something that never was,” wrote @marr_mite.